In July 1618, the judicial machinery of the Scottish Kirk and state turned its attention toward Bessie Finlaysoune, a widow residing in the parish of Keir, located within the jurisdiction of Kippen in Stirling. Her case appears in the records of the Dunblane presbytery, though later scholarship by Ferguson has suggested she may have originally hailed from Fife before settling in the Stirling area. The documentation surrounding her life and legal proceedings is preserved under case number C/EGD/2227, marking the beginning of a formal inquiry that would lead to her trial under reference T/JO/1433.
The surviving records offer a spare, objective account of Bessie’s circumstances as she faced the charges brought against her. As a widow, Bessie occupied a precarious social position in seventeenth-century Scotland, yet the documents focus specifically on her legal journey through the presbyterial and judicial systems of the time. While the specific nature of the allegations remains contained within the broader legal archive of the period, the trial record stands as a testament to the administrative rigor applied to those suspected of witchcraft during the early modern era.